BA (Hons) Primary Education with QTS

Have you been taught by someone who has truly inspired you? Are you ready to pass your knowledge and enthusiasm on to children to help shape their futures? This course will provide you with an integrated academic and professional preparation for teaching, leading to Qualified Teacher Status.

Our experienced course team will work with you to enhance and develop your understanding of learning and teaching. You’ll spend a significant amount of time in school throughout the course and will be encouraged and supported as you learn to develop effective ways to teach the whole primary curriculum. You will explore the theory and practice of primary education and develop a personal philosophy that will underpin all that you seek to achieve with the children you teach.

Initially, you will work with small groups of children, progressing on to working with a whole class with the support of a mentor. This then leads to longer personalised school placements in your second and third years where you will take full responsibility for whole classes of children.

Our course is based around the DfE(2024) Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework to ensure you are well prepared to teach during each of the placements and to prepare you for your future career in the classroom. You will study modules that develop your understanding of pedagogy and educational theory, curriculum subject knowledge, assessment, behaviour management, inclusion, professional behaviours, wellbeing and educational research.

Through placements and engagement with blocks of Intensive Training and Practice (ITaPs) you will make links between theory and your practice, allowing you to focus on pivotal elements of teaching and developing confidence and competence in key areas of primary teaching.

In year one you will begin to reflect on the nature of learning and teaching including the requirements of the national curriculum, classroom management, behaviour, assessment, planning, SEND and Inclusion, the core subjects of the primary curriculum (English, Mathematics, Science), along with the foundation subjects. You will also spend time working with children both at the university and in school.

In your second and third years, you will specialise in one age phase: 3-7 or 5-11. The modules in year two will build on your understanding developed in the first year of the course, with a particular emphasis on issues relating to research, curriculum knowledge and SEND and Inclusion. You will also widen your school experience undertaking a more extensive solo placement focusing on your chosen age range.

Your third year will help you to prepare you for life as an Early Career Teacher (ECT). As well as extending your learning from Year 1 and Year 2, in Year 3, you will carry out a research project in an area of educational interest to you. Your final school placement provides the opportunity to take on responsibility for a whole class and implement all you have learned in your practice.

On completion of your degree, with your recommendation for Qualified Teacher Status, you’ll be fully equipped with the skills and knowledge to work as a primary school teacher.